guages. This work was in press at the time of his death in 1878. It has been said, and may well be believed, of Dr. Pickering, that "love of knowledge was the one passion of his life." In 1833 Harvard College received by the will of Dr. Joshua Fisher, for many years Beverly's beloved physician, an endowment to establish a Fisher professorship of Natural History. After having been declined by Francis Boott and by George B. Emerson, this chair was offered in 1842 to a very promising young man, the pupil and associate of Dr. John Torrey of New York, then the foremost American systematist. This young man who was thirty-two years old and already under appointment to a chair in the nascent University of Michigan, accepted the call, and for forty-six years adorned his chair and the institution of his adoption. The story of Asa Gray's life needs not to be rehearsed here. It has lately been made familiar by the delightful volumes of his letters prepared by his wife. The history of his work is that of American systematic botany for nearly five decades. His text-books and manuals, in various editions, his masterly use of the unrivalled facilities afforded by his position and by the period of exploration and discovery in the great. West over which his activity extended, and his delightful personality, combined to give him a preeminence never before accorded to an American botanist and, one may almost as safely say, never again to be enjoyed by any; while the universal verdict of his foreign colleagues places him in the front. rank of the botanists of the world. Though he first saw the light in central New York, he was of Massachusetts stock, and, as all his best work was done there, the state may fairly claim him. His first book, published when he was but twenty-six years old, was the "Elements of Botany," and his last, brought out shortly before his death, bears the same title. In 1842 appeared the "Botanical Text-book," and in 1848 the first edition of the industry, was left very incomplete, can never cease to be a source of regret to all who profess any interest in the "science beautiful." It is true that Dr. Gray limited himself, in his own work, to the external structure and classification of the flowering plants; but this field was a much larger part of botany in his youth than at present, and it will yet be long before it fails to afford scope for the exercise of the best abilities. Two names are closely associated with the work of Dr. Gray at Harvard, those of two natives of Connecticut and graduates of Yale. Charles Wright spent some years after his graduation in 1835 in the exploration of then almost unknown Texas; and the fruit of some of his work was one of Dr. Gray's best known papers, the "Plantæ Wrightianæ." He accompanied the North Pacific Exploring Expedition as botanist, in 1853-5, and spent most of the next twelve years in extensive and fruitful collecting in Cuba. Several years were then passed in research and assistance at the Gray herbarium; and his last years till his death from the pencil of Isaac Sprague. Combining the skill of the artist with the insight and accuracy of the naturalist, his work has set a high standard for his successors. Two names which here deserve mention as those of contributors of material for Gray's Manual and critical students of the pond-weeds and other flowering plants of our fresh waters are Dr. J. W. Robbins, Yale, '21, a physician of Uxbridge, Mass., and Rev. Thomas Morong, Amherst, '48, who was settled over several Massachusetts parishes and late in life carried out a two years' botanical exploration in South America. His last years were spent as curator of the herbarium of Columbia College, in New York. J. L. RUSSELL. in 1885 were devoted to the exploration of his native hills. Sereno Watson's love of botany did not assert itself for twenty years after his graduation in 1847. A varied and unsatisfactory experience during this time led him finally to accompany King's exploring expedition in the western mountains from 1867 to 1871, devoting himself chiefly to the flowering plants of the country. The resulting volume on the "Botany of California" showed his grasp of his subject so clearly, and Dr. Gray had been so impressed by his ability during his work in Cambridge while preparing it, that he was offered the curatorship of the Gray herbarium in 1874. The earnest hope of botanists that he might be able, after the death of his chief, to complete the Synoptic Flora, on which they had worked for fourteen years together, was shattered by his untimely death only four years after. It would be unfair not to acknowledge the debt of our science to the beautiful plates which accompany some of Dr. Gray's publications, as well as often more popular works, Under the Linnæan system the flowerless plants were thrown together into a class coördinate with each of the classes of flowering plants, and placed at the end of the list. This treatment was perhaps natural enough in view of the scanty knowledge of these forms then possessed; but it had the effect of making them regarded as of little consequence, and for a long time almost ignored. Up to 1840 their study in America had been fragmentary in the extreme. But with the advent of natural classifications which first indicated something of the true place of the different cryptogamic groups in the vegetable kingdom as a whole, they began to attract the attention of lovers of plants. Perhaps our earliest student of the simpler aquatic plants included under the general name Algae was Jacob Whitman Bailey, a native of Worcester County, Mass. A graduate of West Point, he soon became Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Geology there, and up to his early death in 1857, contributed much to the knowledge of his favorite plants. He remembered his New England origin by leaving his fine collection of microscopic preparations to the Boston Society of Natural History. The first systematic attempt at an account of American algæ was left to an Irishman, Prof. William Henry Harvey, of Trinity College, Dublin. An enthusiastic collector and traveller, as well as a noted authority on these plants, he had already resided several years in South Africa, when, in 1849, he visited the United States to investigate its marine flora, spending considerable time in New England. The result was a work issued in three parts during the fifties by the Smithsonian Institution, -the "Nereis Boreali-Americana," which is still indispensable in the study of our "sea-weeds." A pioneer of much greater ability than his published work shows was a Unitarian clergyman of Massachusetts, Rev. John Lewis Russell. A devoted lover of nature, his study was always a naturalist's den, full of "green things and beautiful." He was fond of giving popular instruction, whether by voice or by pen, and was a prominent botanical contributor to the "New American Cyclopedia." For forty years, and till the close of his life in 1873, he was "Professor of Botany and Vegetable Physiology" to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; and he left to it a bequest to endow an annual lecture on the relations of the fungi to horticulture, as though he foresaw the important discoveries since made and. yet to be made concerning the etiology and preventive treatment of the numerous and destructive fungous diseases of our cultivated plants. His special studies upon the mosses and lichens were begun when very little was known of these plants in America, and it is to be regretted that his extensive knowledge of them was not preserved family record by taking the A. B., in course at Cambridge, having been earlier graduated from from the Law School there, and later completing the course in the Divinity School. Mean while he had studied in Europe and had learned from the father of systematic lichenology, Elias Fries, of Upsala, the traditions and methods of that study. As a young man he was an enthusiastic explorer, and the grand "Tuckerman's Ravine," on Mount Washington, perpetuates the memory of his energy. He was a profound student of history, and considered that his professional work, with botany as his recreation. Yet it is as a botanist that he is and will be best remembered. From 1854 to 1873, he was Lecturer in History in Amherst College, in whose shadow his home was made until his work was finished in 1886. From 1858 until the end he was also Professor of Botany there. The volumes he prepared will long remain the chief authority on our lichen-flora. He clung, to the last, to the belief of the older lichenologists in the autonomy of these plant-combinations, a view now superseded; but this detracts nothing from the value and critical EDWARD TUCKERMAN. insight of his systematic studies. His "Catalogue of Plants growing within. thirty miles of Amherst College" was an elaboration and revision of President Hitchcock's earlier one. For him, as for his predecessor, plants meant members of the vegetable kingdom, and his list is as complete as possible in all groups. The list of Fungi was prepared by the shoemaker botanist of Brattleboro, Vt., Charles C. Frost, one of our earliest students of this group of plants, in whose study he rendered real service. Entirely self-taught, he gained command of several languages to fit himself for his studies, and was an interesting example of what persistence inspired by devotion can accomplish. One of the earliest botanical amateurs in Rhode Island was Stephen T. Olney. Though engaged in business during most of his life, he found time. for much botanizing. Indeed his fondness for this form of recreation gave currency to stories of mental derangement, which were seriously listened to by the learned court concerned in the settlement of his estate. So well is the love of nature appreciated by the gazing crowd! After studies of the flowering plants in his earlier years, which resulted in the publication of his "Catalogue of Rhode Island Plants," he became a careful investigator of the sea-weeds, a list of which, published a few years before his death in 1878, was entitled "Algæ Rhodiaceæ." One whose residence among us during the last thirteen years of his life demands a place for him here is Thomas P. James. A wholesale druggist in Philadelphia until 1869, he then removed to Cambridge and devoted himself to the study of his favorite plants, the mosses. The chief result of his labors was the "Manual of the Mosses of North America," left incomplete at his death, and finished, as a labor of love, by his friend, Sereno Watson. The æsthetic and scientific interest of the ferns has gained for them many appreciative students, one of the chief of whom was a son of New England. Daniel Cady Eaton was graduated at Yale in 1857, and spent his life, just closed, in her service as Professor of Botany, his love for which was, doubtless, a natural inheritance from his grandfather, Amos Eaton. His elaboration of the account of the ferns for successive editions of Gray's Manual, and various other publications, both technical and popular, concerning them have given him the first place among our authorities on this group. He has also done good service in the study of marine algæ and of the general flora of his vicinity. The "Catalogue of flowering Plants and higher Cryptogams growing within thirty miles of Yale College," issued by the Berzelius Society, shows everywhere the influence of his advice. Certain societies deserve mention here for their influence on the development of botany in New England. The New England Society for Promoting Natural History, formed in December, 1814, became, a month later, the Linnæan Society of New England. From 1818 till its dissolution in 1822, its meetings were very irregularly held; and then, for several years, the outlook was felt to be too discouraging to warrant another attempt. But, in 1830, the Boston Society of Natural History was formed, and, in the next year, incorporated. At that time there was no good museum and no good teaching of natural history in New England. Through aid from the state and private gifts, the Society's fine building on the Back Bay was obtained, and gradually its splendid collections have been accumulated. Its influence on teaching has been steady and important, and its publication fund has furnished the means for giving to the world many scientific memoirs of the greatest value. The Natural History Survey of Massachusetts, authorized through its influence and made under its supervision, was the first in the country and the model for subsequent similar undertakings. Its first active president, who served for seven years, was Dr. Benjamin D. Greene, of Tewksbury, a devoted amateur botanist, who, though publishing nothing, gave freely of his ample means to the society and otherwise for the promotion of science, and left to it his valuable library and herbarium. His successor for six years was George B. Emerson. Society had for its first president Dr. Andrew Nichols. For three years before 1848, Rev. J. L. Russell stood at its head; and after its fusion with the Essex Historical Society, in that year, to form the Essex Institute, he served the last as vice-president for thirteen years. Several of his too brief papers are among its publications. As one glances over the list of those New Englanders who have added something to our knowledge of plants, he must be struck by the small number of professional botanists it comprises. It is safe to say that only three or four of all those above mentioned have derived their living principally from their botanical work. But we have seen that physicians, clergymen, general naturalists, chemists, teachers, men of business and of leisure have earned for themselves the name of botanist. Our first professional naturalist to devote himself exclusively to botany was Dr. Gray; and it has been only with the development of the newer theoretical and practical aspects of the science that such a career has become more generally possible. In the limits of a single article it will be The Essex County Natural History impossible to give any detailed ac The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has counted among its members our ablest botanists, and its publications contain much of the fruit of their labors. |